Would it make sense for teams to intentionally create herd immunity? Experts say not so fast.
The idea has arisen inside college football locker rooms; on Paul Finebaum’s radio show and Boomer Esiason’s; and even, sources say, during a recent Pac-12 meeting. On Friday, coaches and athletic department officials convened virtually with the conference’s coronavirus advisory committee. An anonymous question was put to the medical experts.It’s a question that has been lurking for weeks now. It gains steam as Clemson rolls on despite 37 positive COVID-19 tests.
They and other experts, however, say there are several reasons the presumed advantage might not be nearly as significant as it appears. Many pinpointed sustainability of immunity and long-lasting complications as two massive unknowns. And besides, Waldman says: “It seems somewhat perverse to be talking about [COVID-19] in those terms.”
He also points to another finding: “For the asymptomatic patients, immunity is even shorter.” In other words, there appears to be a relationship between degree of sickness, immune system response and antibody strength. “Young people who have mild disease or asymptomatic disease, their antibodies may never rise very high,” says Sankar Swaminathan, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Utah. “We don't even know if those antibodies are protective.
“And you can't always predict who that's gonna be,” adds Jon Drezner, director of sports cardiology at the University of Washington. “Sometimes it's the apparently fully healthy individual. … You just don't know.” Some experts point to high-profile case studies to show that the chance of significant symptoms isn’t negligible. Von Miller had a “frightening” experience that included difficulty breathing. Rudy Gobert still hasn’t fully recaptured his sense of smell. Swimmer Cameron van der Burgh, an Olympic gold medalist, fought COVID for weeks, and called it “by far the worst virus I have ever endured, despite being a healthy individual with strong lungs, living a healthy lifestyle and being young.
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